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Ph for Frontosa


Paulcha11

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Hey guys,

Am a little stuck with the PH for my fronnies. I have a 600 litre tank with a heap of Texas holey rock and tahitian moon sand as my substrate. My tap water comes in at 7.4-7.6 and when I test my water in the tank it is the same.

I'm about to put a colony in the tank but am a bit worried it's not high enough.

My questions are is this range ok as long as I keep it constant and why isnt the rock buffering the water at all?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

Paul

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Hey Paul, you really need a substrate that buffs your water. That tahitian moon sand is neutral and wont help your water. Your rocks alone is not enough.

You can change your substrate to something like aragonite which will help. You could also use seachem buffers to bump things up. Also if you have any space in your canister(s) you can fill any void with crushed coral.

Personally I think your PH is a little low. If you buff your water with seachem products just be mindful that you are better off doing smaller water changes more frequently so you dont give your fish a wild water parameter ride.

I had a calvus tank years ago that I had black sintered glass as substrate (very similar) and had to use seachem to buff the water up. It was a bit of a pain and fairly pricey.

If they were malawi I'd say its ok but for tangs I prefer to make sure the water is harder.

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The Texas Holey Rock will affect pH. It probably having limited affect because of the amount of rock you have and total surface area of these rocks possess.

The addition of crushed coral to you filter will provide a large surface area and with the water flow will have a great impact on the pH.

I have also used coarse shell grit (oyster shells) in a media bag in the sump.

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Thanks Ged, in fact I have just purchased a couple of kilos of crushed coral/aragonite from my LFS. Ill put that in both filters and see how that goes. mjoconr, ill test my water and get back to you with results.

Cheers guys.

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I few days ago I put in a fair bit of crushed coral into each filter and apart from making the water cloud up (which doesn't seem to be getting better) it has only marginally upped the PH. It is now sitting around 7.6 - 7.8.

Mjoconr, the water out of the tap comes in a KH of 71.6 and the GH of 90?? Does this affect the water when I do water changes?

Also will the coral slowly/gradually lift the PH over the next few weeks or should it have a pretty immediate effect?

Cheers guys.

Paul

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Crushed coral and shell only alters the KH as it dissolves,, as it breaks down into water, the water starts to raise in KH.

This is a slow process and not a accurate way to achieve desired levels of KH.

Using crushed coral, shell or the likes of, is only used to slightly tweak KH,,, for example, if your KH level is almost there but needs just a tad more raising, then crushed coral will tweak it after a week or two after water change as it begins to break down again.

If your two or more increments of KH below desired level, then using crushed coral is equivelant to putting a band aid on a serious wound that needs lots of stitches.

Once you've calculated how much buffer salts powder you need,,,,,,,,

Then after every water change whack it in, and bang, done.

Stability is instant because buffers bring it exactly where it needs to be straight away.

Buffers are the easiest way to go, undoubtedly.

No point trying to bash a 4 inch nail into jarrah with a tac hammer.

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You want in the higher range of 180-400 KH and GH.

Your tap water is very low in carbonates.

Crushed coral won't make a dent.

Definetely in need of buffer salts,,, I'd personally bring it to 300' KH for fronts.

Try seachem buffer ranges,,, it seems expensive, but it's so concentrated that it's a touch cheaper than most others.

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You may need something like 'Easy Life' filter medium to clear the water or a small pump with fine filter wool to 'shine' the water.

Those numbers mean that your KH and GH should buffer your PH to around the numbers your getting. The raising of your PH will depend on if your KH raises which it should I suppose with the coral. It does take time initially for the coral to start losing the calcium.

Each time you do a water change it will drop again until the coral hopefully raises it again. This is the reason why I always add buffers but it can be hard to know how much.

I forgot to say that the water from your tap is very low in KH so it will need buffing.

I also see that other wrote this while i was composing my comment :)

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Mjoconr, buccal,

Thanks guys for your responses, your knowledge is impressive and I sincerely am appreciative of you sharing it with me.(and others no doubt). I hope to do the same one day!

I'll grab some buffering agents and see how I go with that. Ill keep you posted on the results. It seems to me from your comments that if I focus on the KH, the PH will look after itself.

Just on a side note, will the crushed coral I put in my filter act as a good biological filtration (good place to keep that good bacteria) given its surface area and texture?

Cheers

Paul

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After adding the aragonite into my filters the PH is maintaining a steady 8.0. KH has increased 125-143. So its on the way up but like you said it has probably done all it can at this stage.

Now going to add some Seachem buffer tonight to see how much I need to lift it into the 8.4 - 8.6 region.

Keep you posted.

Cheers

Paul

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Anything with surface area serve as benefial bacteria housing.

Once you got your KH levels correct,,,, then try to calculate the needed amount to treat new water coming in of a water change.

This way, you add small amounts of buffer with every water change to maintain stability.

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